AP | Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin said some proposals in a US plan to end the war in Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin, indicating in comments published Thursday that any deal is still some ways off.
US President Donald Trump has set in motion the most intense diplomatic push to stop the fighting since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of its neighbour nearly four years ago. But the effort has once again run into demands that are hard to reconcile, especially over whether Ukraine must give up land to Russia and how it can be kept safe from any future aggression by Moscow.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner are set to meet with Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, later Thursday in Miami for further talks, according to a senior Trump administration official who wasn’t authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin said his five-hour talks Tuesday in the Kremlin with Witkoff and Kushner were “necessary” and “useful,” but also “difficult work,” and some proposals were unacceptable.
Putin spoke to the India Today TV channel before visiting New Delhi on Thursday. Before the full interview was broadcast, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti quoted some of his remarks in it.
Tass quoted Putin as saying that in Tuesday’s talks, the sides “had to go through each point” of the US peace proposal, “which is why it took so long.”
“This was a necessary conversation, a very concrete one,” he said, with provisions that Moscow was ready to discuss, while others “we can’t agree to.”
Trump said Wednesday that Witkoff and Kushner came away from their marathon session confident that he wants to find an end to the war. “Their impression was very strongly that he’d like to make a deal,” he added.
Putin refused to elaborate on what Russia could accept or reject, and none of the other officials involved offered details of the talks.
“I think it is premature. Because it could simply disrupt the working regime of the peace effort, Tass quoted Putin as saying.
European leaders, left on the sidelines by Washington as US officials engage directly with Moscow and Kyiv, have accused Putin of feigning interest in Trump’s peace drive.
French President Emmanuel Macron met in Beijing with China’s leader Xi Jinping, seeking to involve him in pressuring Russia toward a ceasefire. Xi, whose country has provided strong diplomatic support for Putin, did not respond to France’s call but said that “China supports all efforts that work towards peace.”
Russian barrages of civilian areas of Ukraine continued overnight into Thursday. A missile struck Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday night, wounding six people, including a 3-year-old girl, according to city administration head Oleksandr Vilkul.
The attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown damaged more than 40 residential buildings, a school and domestic gas pipes, Vilkul said.
A 6-year-old girl died in the southern city of Kherson after Russian artillery shelling wounded her the previous day, regional military administration chief Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
The Kherson Thermal Power Plant, which provides heat for over 40,000 residents, shut down Thursday after Russia pounded it with drones and artillery for several days, he said.
Authorities planned emergency meetings to find alternate sources of heating, he said. Until then, tents were erected across the city where residents could warm up and charge electronic devices.
Russia also struck Odesa with drones, wounding six people, while civilian and energy infrastructure was damaged, said Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration.
Overall, Russia fired two ballistic missiles and 138 drones at Ukraine overnight, officials said. Meanwhile, in the Russia-occupied part of the Kherson region, two men were killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on their vehicle Thursday, Moscow-installed regional leader Vladimir Saldo said. A 68-year-old woman was also wounded in the attack, he said.
